PROFILE: Garth Drabinsky
GARTH DRABINSKY
Born 1948, Toronto
Few Canadians have simultaneously inspired as much awe, admiration, skepticism, sycophancy and disgust as Garth Drabinsky -- the high-flying entrepreneur behind the joystick of such dazzling, daredevil crashes as Cineplex and Livent. Love him or hate him, you have to hand it to the man for not only building an empire from the ground up, but doing it twice -- if not more (surely, the man will make another return to the limelight he loves so much) -- and flying the Maple Leaf in the face of star-spangled suits at every turn.
On paper, Drabinsky created the two the largest entertainment companies this country has ever seen, only to lose them both to American interests. Determined to play the same game of self-creation cemented into American consciousness via Hollywood’s marketing of the “American Dream” -- to the point where he even took it upon himself to produce the American classic, E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, on Broadway-- Drabinsky ...
Ai WeiWei: the unapologetic revolutionary
Vancouver Biennale
Ai WeiWei Film Retrospective
Never Sorry, The Fake Case
April 13, 20, 26, Rio Theatre, 6 p.m.
By Katherine Monk
In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and subsequent mass rallies in the name of free expression, it would seem the artist’s role in society has never been more at risk. Then again, none of us lived through The Spanish Inquisition. Or, for that matter, has any real recollection of the black suit soap opera called the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Artists have a habit of winding up in the crosshairs of history because if they’re any good, they make us question the world we take for granted and see anew. “A revolution in form is a revolution in essences,” said Jose Marti, the Cuban poet, novelist and political activist immortalized in Guantanamera, a song made popular by famed protest singer Pete Seeger.
Marti’s words apply just as readily to art as it does to politics, and society as a ...
